Hamble Airfield Planning Application for the Extraction of Sand and Gravel: Hampshire County Council (HCC) Highways Response

Hamble Parish Council was extremely surprised and dismayed to read Hampshire County Council’s Highways’ response to Cemex’s application to build a quarry in the heart of our village. Anyone who is familiar with Hamble is aware of the challenges residents and visitors face when trying to traverse Hamble Lane – one of the busiest B roads in the UK. The siting of a significant quarrying operation on the Hamble Airfield site, and the 144 additional HGV vehicle movements which will visit the site daily, will have a hugely negative effect on the ability to travel in and out of Hamble, and will impact the day-to-day life of our residents, the ability of our businesses to recruit and thrive, and the number of visitors upon whom so many of our hospitality and marine businesses rely.

In our own responses to this consultation, we have expressed our significant concerns about road safety. The planned entrance to the quarry is between our two village schools; the potential consequences of our children sharing their route to school with a vastly increased number of HGVs is too terrible to contemplate.

Furthermore, we are bitterly disappointed that Highways have failed to respond to the consultation in a timely manner. This is the second time they have failed to meet the deadline and it smacks of an intention to hinder meaningful public engagement in this process.

Finally, in raising no objection, HCC Highways have failed to confirm how they will manage the consequences of the application. They recognise the inevitable impacts from the additional 144 HGVs that will use Hamble Lane each day but fail to provide any reassurance about what they will seek from the developer to reduce the problem, how much these measures will cost, and how the schemes will be delivered. This is not the first time that the peninsula has been promised improvements to the ‘one road in, one road out’ that is Hamble Lane, only to see the schemes not materialise. This is such a significant issue for residents. It is wholly unacceptable for us to be left in the dark about the adequacy or not of the proposals that Highways will negotiate with Cemex and we will be pressing this point with the case officer at the earliest opportunity.

We will continue to represent Hamble residents to the very best of our abilities in objecting to these proposals and hope that the Regulatory Committee will understand the harm that this proposal will bring to our village.